Inside the US Soccer Development Academy

Whether it be a high school athletic director, parents, high school coaches or players, the academy knows it has its detractors.

Many people are upset academy players can no longer play high school soccer because the seasons overlap. But the academy wants people to know their goal is not to ruin high school, in fact they have nothing against it. Their goal is to provide training for the elite players and help those players reach their full potential.

"Our job is to develop the best players not only in our club, but in the country," Vardar coach Mike Lupenec said. "It's not a winning thing, it's more let's get the best kids together in the country, represent our country and have the best national team we can create. It's everybody working together. Yeah, you want to win academy games, but the whole purpose is to put kids in the right environment so they become better players. And if kids aren't challenged ...

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"In high school there are a lot of kids that aren't challenged. They'll go to a high school game and score five goals in one game. That's not going to happen in an academy game. Academy games are a one-goal game and it's very competitive."

Vardar and the Michigan Wolves are the two boys academy teams in the state of Michigan and two of 100 nationwide. Both compete in the Mid-America Division of the U.S. Soccer Development Academy league.

According to the U.S. Soccer Development Academy web site, the Vardar U18 teamn has a roster of 16 players, while the U16 team has a roster of 26. Meanwhile, the Wolves have 19 players on their U18 roster and 20 and their U16 roster.

There are 475 high school teams in the state of Michigan and roughly 14,200 players total so the 81 academy players in Michigan are a small percentage of the boys playing soccer.

"The academy is for the elite player only," Michigan Wolves director and U18 coach Brian Doyle said. "If you're in that category or if you want to be in that category of an elite player, which is the top Division I college player, then the academy is what you're looking for. I don't know the percentages, but it's maybe five percent of the soccer community, the top level. Maybe less. It is for those types of players.

"It was never intended to disrupt the high school world and it hasn't because if you look at it, only one or two players from a high school program have left to go to the academies. There's 20-something guys left. Every once in a while there is a group of four or five players that came from a high school that went to ourselves and Vardar. It's a very good benefit for the players. It's a very competitive environment. It's a very high standard."

The benefits

The academy system not only brings the best players together, but it's also very structured. U.S. Soccer has certain mandates and requirements that have to be met in order to be an academy team.

"What people don't realize is they control how we play," Lupenec said. "There's certain styles we have to play. It eliminates a lot of the man marking, a lot of the kick ball stuff. We're evaluated based on how we play, not on the result. They are looking more at developing kids the right way compared to the olden days. Nothing against high school soccer, but you'll have a sweeper that will stand on the 13-yard line. They will man mark everybody and when you get it they will just kick it to the quickest kid up top and if he scores, he scores. I'm not saying all high school programs do this, but a majority of them do and it's not really controlled."

"There is definite criteria (U.S. soccer) expects you to fulfill," Doyle said. "Training three, four times a week. There's a constant reporting of players, how they are doing. There is a system of technical advisors. There's constant oversight of what we're doing. They come, they watch us. They watch our training, we turn in our training sessions. We have what we call schematics of games. Whose playing where, what numbers so they can evaluate the players. There's a great deal of oversight, which is good for the clubs and the kids."

The style of play in the academy is much more advanced than high school and helps prepare the kids to play at a higher level one day.

"What coaches emphasize a lot on is playing one and two balls, playing quick, no dribbling," said Vardar player Kevin Tapchom, who attends Brother Rice. "In high school you can dribble, take on three or four guys. (Academy) you can't do that anymore. You have to pass and move, which makes it quicker. When you go over there and compete with the European kids that's what they're doing. It's about speed of play. The speed of play is a big thing. It's probably the biggest difference between high school and academy."

The main emphasis in academy is training. There is typically only one or two games per week.

U.S. soccer believes focusing on training instead of games allows players to improve more.

"The mentality in training and in games is much more professional," said Wolves player Allen Wang, who attends Troy. "Everything is driven around goals and small objectives. Everything has a purpose. Each game we try to accomplish something, each training session is very useful."

"It's a longer season so you're constantly working," said Wolves player Spencer Ward, who attends Rochester Adams. "The coaching staff is a lot better. They take a lot more time to work with you. You become a lot closer with the guys on the team because you're with them more. You are playing for a real team, instead of just like a bunch buddies from school. It's just a great experience being able to travel at a young age and see how the competition is going to be and talking to schools, it really helps."

Academy players also have the benefit of knowing their team is committed to their development.

"There's a rule in the academy that everybody has to start 25 percent of the matches," Doyle said. "It was put in the first year. If we don't think you're going to be a very important player for the team then we recommend they don't come to the academy. It's kind of that simple. ... We don't bring in kids to sit on the bench. They have to play."

"No one has their name written on the bench in academy," Tapchom said. "All those kids are really good players and if they work hard enough in practice, if they have a good game, they can be starters the next day. There's no issue with playing time that I know of."

Big-time exposure

Since the academy programs feature the top players, the games and events tend to attract scouts, whether they be college or pro.

The exposure to scouts is a large reason many of the players chose to play academy. If a player's long-term goal is to player college or pro soccer, nothing can match the exposure academy teams can offer.

"If you go to an academy event ... you'll have literally every Division I college program and Division II programs at the showcase," Doyle said. "Sometimes you'll have literally 60 coaches around one field watching a game."

Former Birmingham Brother Rice player and current University of Buffalo player Russell Cicerone was among the first players who had to chose between high school or academy last season.

He chose to play academy his senior year for Vardar and did so with the hopes of playing college soccer.

"They told me if I wanted to go on and play Division I college soccer then I had to play academy and they were right," said Cicerone, who has already been named MAC Player of the Week this season as a freshman. "At every single academy game you have three or four college scouts there. Your game gets so much better practicing with those guys and playing against guys like that. It's a very good decision that I made to play academy.

"I'd probably still be playing college soccer (if I played high school), but I wouldn't have got the looks that I got from the big-time schools. I probably wouldn't have gone Division I."

Oakland (Mich.) University coach Eric Pogue, who is also an assistant coach on the U18 Vardar team, said academy events attract a ton of college coaches because it offers them a chance to see a number of high quality players at once and with coaches strapped for time during their season, it offers the most bang for their buck.

"The exposure thing is huge," Pogue said. "It's just not the same (in high school). The exposure at the academy level to college, to getting looked at by the U.S. national team type staff, it's so much larger in the academy. Good, bad or indifferent, it's just the way it is. They have a structure set up for these national team coaches to come and evaluate, look at players."

Pogue recruits both academy and non-academy kids to Oakland, but said when he goes to high school games he's nearly always the only coach there and in some cases the quality of play is down.

"I went to some (high school) games where if there were academy players in those games it would have been a lot higher standard game, but at 8:30 at night I'm going to the Vardar training session and I'm seeing half the kids that should have been playing in that game," Pogue said. "It would have been an interesting game. It's still a competitive game, it's fun to be there, but not necessarily drawing a ton of talent out of those. But I'm going to go there just to make sure I don't miss anybody."

Many of the top college coaches in the nation prefer their players to play academy because they believe it makes them more prepared to contribute when they arrive on campus. Pogue admitted he would encourage a kid who committed to Oakland to play academy unless they had a good alternative in place.

"In all honesty, all things being equal, I would ask them to play in the academy," Pogue said. "I would also want to know what's his high school situation. What club team does he play for. But if he doesn't chose that route, that's fine too as long as I know he has a plan in place to make sure he's ready for us come August and gives him the best opportunity to impact our team. If he was going to ask me without me knowing anything, I would chose the academy just because I see on a daily basis the kids getting better and development. I think it's hard on the high school level to play so many games in such a short period of time.

"I don't think anyone is saying, 'You have to do this, you have to do this.' Now if a kid has the ability and talent level to one day maybe play over in Europe or whatever, he should be pushed to play at the best level possible. That's an informed, educated decision that a young man needs to make. Sit down with his high school coach, his parents, himself, his club coach, all the people and then sit down and make an informed decision.

"Just be up front with people and say, 'Well this is the reason I'm making this decision. It's not just because I'm being pressured by my high school coach or I'm being pressured by my academy coach or I'm being pressured by this school that's recruiting me that's saying if you don't play academy I'm not going to recruit you.' I've never heard that from anybody. I've heard coaches say they strongly encourage their players to play in the academy, but I've never heard anyone say 'I won't recruit you if you don't do this.' "

Financial commitment

Playing academy soccer has a number of benefits, but it can also come at a high financial cost. Clubs have scholarships and do what they can to help keep costs down, but with players often responsible for travel expenses it can get costly.

"Financially it is pretty hard," Ward said. "We are sponsored by the Columbus Crew MLS team so our club fees at the beginning of the year is less than half of most clubs. The airfare and hotel rooms definitely have a lot of cost to them."

"Most academies try to lessen your club burden, like your club fees, because there is a lot of traveling involved," Wang said. "You might not pay as much of a club fee as normal travel soccer teams, but there is a lot more traveling. It is a bit of a more financial duty."

Some academy detractors have accused the clubs of making the switch for financial reasons, but Lupenec said that's simply not true.

"The kids that play for an academy pay less than kids do for a regular soccer team with all these other clubs," Lupenec said. "We have Nike that supplies the uniforms for the kids. We cut the cost in regards to what the registration is. The coaches make a lot less. To coach academy you have to do other teams just to supplement your income. When people are saying it's money motivated, it's not money motivated.

"There's a reason why they picked us and the Wolves. There is a history behind us in regards to developing some of the best players in the state. All these other clubs are going to say it's money motivated, but if you did the dollars and cents with us, it's not money motivated. The bottom line is we had to apply like everybody else. Everybody tries to get in the academy. It's the elite program in America right now. As a club, why wouldn't you want to be in it? As a coach myself I'm learning. I'm competing against some of the best coaches in the country and seeing some of the best players in the country compete against each other. It not only makes me a better coach, it makes our players better players. It's what soccer should be."